Spectres of Yule
by Moczo
Summary: That night, Soren was visited by three ghosts…


Happy holidays! Please enjoy what is MY MAGNUM OPUS.

* * *

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the fort, the Mercenaries were decorating all over the court. Ike had been hired as General once more; he was now the leader of the Great Christmas War.

"People say 'happy holidays,' like some evil fools; the phrase is 'Merry Christmas,' those are the rules!" The noble who'd hired them had seemed rather rash; Ike would have said no 'cept for a boat-load of cash.

"Knock off the stupid rhyming!" said the grinch of this tale, Soren. But he had a point, because rhyme schemes are hard. "Honestly this is barely worth the money. Christmas is a complete waste of time, resources, cookie dough, and integrity."

"Ugh, here he goes," Titania muttered.

"When I was growing up, the only Christmas present I got was not dying, and that was a sucky gift. Sometimes when I was really lucky, the non-existent Santa Claus brought me no particularly violent peasants."

"Santa isn't real?" Rolf sobbed with horror. Oscar and Boyd both glared at Soren as they comforted their stupid younger brother.

Ike sighed. "Look Soren, I get it, but even Shinon likes Christmas."

"Fuck yeah eggnog and cookies! _That is my shit, man!"  
_  
" _CHRISTMAS IS AWESOME!_ " Mia yelled, and she and Shinon shared high fives (although Shinon's missed).

"So you're being a scrooge." Ike smiled a little mischievously. "Do you need to be taught the true meaning of Christmas?"

"I know the true meaning. Pretending to care for one's fellow man while buying useless garbage."

"I would be careful, Soren," said Rhys, nervous. "An attitude like yours is begging for divine intervention. There are tales of spirits that arise to educate the living…"

Fed up, Soren finally left the others to go sulk alone.

* * *

 _That night, Soren was visited by three ghosts…_

* * *

Someone was knocking on his door loudly, which usually was indicative of an emergency. Thankfully he was a light sleeper, so he crawled out of his warm bed and threw the door open, preparing to roundly chastise whoever it was because no emergency was that important.

Soren blinked in surprise at finding the Mad King Ashnard in all his dead glory standing before him. "… … … What?"

"Soren, I am your father," he said with a sneer. "I am here to teach you about Christmas Past."

"… … … _What_?"

"We begin our tale in glorious Daein, where it is always a white Christmas."

Soren found himself standing in Daein Keep, overlooking a horde of children and teenagers who were opening gifts.

"I was the youngest of 26, so I usually did not get the good presents," Ashnard explained. "So when I orchestrated my rise to power, I made sure to butcher all my siblings so I could take their stuff."

"Oh poor you! Suddenly starving and freezing doesn't seem so bad!"

The Mad King continued, "Unfortunately, since I murdered all my blood relations, and then enslaved my brother-in-law and wife while selling my son, Santa Claus put me on his naughty list. So, do you know what I did next?"

"Said sorry?" Soren drawled. "Or, dare I say it, did you kill him?"

Ashnard snorted. "Nothing so inelegant. I tricked him into signing a blood pact that subsequently subjected his friends, family, elven slaves, and reindeer to a slow and painful death." He paused, considered, and amended, " _Then_ I killed him."

"Wow, you didn't do things half-arsed, did you? Even the reindeer?"

"Especially the reindeer."

"While I like knowing I was right about there being no Santa Claus, how is this teaching me the true meaning of Christmas?"

"Do not be a fool! When you kill Santa Claus, you take his power. Behold! My sleigh, the great feral beast Rajaion!" The dragon let out a mighty roar. "My basket of presents – Gurgurant, the bringer of the gift of _**DEATH**_!" Ashnard laughed evilly as he swung his massive sword above his head.

"Wait a second, you're dead too," Soren pointed out. "Does that mean Ike is Santa Claus? Because I can't really suspend my disbelief enough for that."

"Bah. He is an idiot. I doubt he could read the required lists. Hmph, our time here is short. You seek a moral? Here it is: 'enjoy the presents and kill anyone who brings you no joy.' For example, the redheaded male. Why have you not killed him yet? Poison would do it, or, surely the man sleeps. Everyone does." He let out a truly impressive evil cackle.

"I – huh. That… is a good question." Why _hadn't_ he killed Shinon yet?

They appeared back in Soren's bedroom. "And there you have it. You will be visited by two more ghosts this evening. Think on what has been said!" The spirit of Ashnard slowly faded from sight.

Soren thought about it for exactly two seconds before he opted to go back to bed instead.

* * *

There was a knock on the door that Soren knew instantly was Ike's knock, even though Ike usually didn't knock. "Just come in!" he yelled.

The door opened and Ike walked in. "Hey Soren, I'm here as the Ghost of Christmas Present."

Soren glared at him. "Are you shitting me right now?"

"Nope. C'mon, we're going to go see what happened after you left the conversation earlier."

Soren kept glaring at him. "I refuse to leave my warm bed willingly. Can't you just zap us there?"

"It's literally down the hallway…"

"It's the middle of the night and you are showing me a conversation that happened hours ago. Which is technically the past, I must point out. By the way, are you Santa Claus?"

Ike sighed, picked Soren up to fling him over his shoulder, and walked down the hallway to the mess hall. Soren considered cussing him out, but that was a lot of effort and he was really tired.

The mess hall still had Ike, Mia, Titania, Rhys, the brothers, and Shinon.

"Man that kid is a dick!" said Shinon.

"Wow Shinon," Mia gushed, "We both love Christmas and think Soren sucks! If only you weren't also a colossal douchebag, we might be friends!" They both laughed at the idea.

"Santa Claus isn't real!" Rolf wailed.

"Sure he is," Oscar cooed softly. "You just need to keep believing."

"I don't believe!"

"Death to the disbeliever!" Everyone looked at Rhys. "Oh, sorry."

"Guys," said the 'real' Ike, "Soren had a really hard life. I can talk to him about toning down the cynicism, but cut him some slack."

"See?" said Ghost Ike. "We're all pretty used to you raining on our parades, but Christmas is special. Plus now I think Rhys might smite you, so I'd be careful."

"Sure," said Soren because he wanted to go to bed.

"Okay that's all the more effort I'm willing to put into that." Ghost Ike carried him back to bed. "You'll get one more visitor, FYI."

Soren glared at him as he wrapped himself back in his blanket cocoon.

* * *

Soren rolled his eyes harder as he answered the door, preparing to yell at whoever interrupted his sleep for the third farking time. To his surprise, however…

"Who're you?" he asked, because he knew who Ashnard and Ike were but he was pretty sure he didn't know this guy. He looked like an Ike who was a bum and desperately needed a haircut.

"My name's Priam," said he, "I am your son from the future."

Soren had no response to that. No snide remarks, no clever one-liners.

"It's a long story," he continued. "And wow, you look exactly the same, you were not kidding about aging slowly. Anyway, I am here to teach you about Christmas Future."

"You're my what?"

Priam sighed. "Your son from the future."

"My son?"

"Your son."

"From the future?"

"From the future."

"But… but I…"

"Like I said, it's a long story. You'll find out some day."

"Who… who's the _mother_?" Soren, horrified, considered the options.

"Oh my sweet naïve Papa," Priam muttered.

"Wait are you implying _I'm-_ "

"Here we go, visiting the future!" said Priam brightly.

They appeared in a bar. Future Soren – who really did look like the present one – was getting very drunk with Priam. "I can't believe your other father left me because I didn't appreciate Christmas! Now I am lonely and miserable! I wish I had been warned about the perils of hating the holidays by the best son anyone could ever ask for! Now I'm just like Shinon, and nobody likes him!" Future Soren mourned.

"Eh, don't forget that Uncle Shinon and Aunt Mia became friends over their love of Christmas," Future Priam pointed out awkwardly. "So it's really just you that nobody likes." He patted his father on the back even as Future Soren redoubled his drinking.

Present Soren turned to look at Ghost Priam. "Seriously."

"Well no, but 'after my other father died you tried drinking yourself to death' was just too depressing."

"As depressing as me being your mother?"

"You're not gonna let that go are you."

"Nope."

"The point is, you have a kind of weird family here now and you're wasting quality time with them by being an asshole." Priam shrugged. "Take it or leave it."

Soren sighed, rolling his eyes. "Just take me home. I want to sleep, dammit."

Priam could dig that, and so they ended up back in Soren's bedroom. Soren returned to his blanket cocoon and fell asleep… and stayed asleep, which was a true Christmas miracle.

* * *

The next day everyone gathered around the Christmas tree, which was cheaply decorated but had a large number of gifts underneath.

"Wow, look at that!" said Boyd brightly. "Santa brought all these presents. He is truly our hero."

"Yaaay!" squealed Rolf.

"I'm glad this all went well," said Ike. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to bed. I didn't get any sleep last night."

"Reindeer for dinner again?" asked Oscar.

"You bet! Dasher is a bitch." Ike went off to go sleep.

Soren kept his mouth shut because _he had learned a valuable lesson_ : not that Christmas was awesome, no, but that people generally don't like smartasses.

 ** _The End!_**


End file.
